"The Dawn that Rose from Fire"

Day 22 of Novel November- Alenyah experiences great loss

No moon illuminated the loch. Reflected in the mirror-like surface the brilliance of a million stars and galaxies exploded like a kaleidoscope of color. Alenyah felt the tug of the rope tied around her waist, wondered if she’d float downwards into the open sky.

Kaelen had insisted on each of them being tied together in case of the ice cracking. To disburse weight evenly across the surface, they alternated one of the Stoneborn and the Rhea and Fey’ri. Kaelen held the front and Foxran, the rear. The horses and Valka padded alongside some feet away, also distanced from one another.

Alenyah wondered as she gingerly stepped onto the ice why no snow covered the surface. It had awed her the same a century ago. When she asked Berin, he shrugged.

“I’m honestly not sure. Maybe some strand of tune keeps the lake clear. Who knows what this place was meant to be years ago?”

The Fey’ri supposed he was right. Collapsed standing stones rimmed the shore like the lashes of a great eye, unblinking towards the heavens.

Unfortunately, the lack of snow made the surface even more slick than normal. The ice stretched on forever, smooth and eerily flawless, like a window laid flat between worlds. Every step sent a soft tremor trembling outward beneath their feet, faint spiderwebs of stress that vanished as quickly as they appeared. The silence was oppressing on her ears. Beyond the whisper of melody from the others, it was as if the creation of the Maker had abandoned this place entirely. Kaelen walked about five feet ahead of her, Seth behind since he was the lightest of the Stoneborn. If they weren’t so exposed, Alenyah wanted to remain here, basking in the starlight in this forgotten place. Even so, the tug and creak of the rope around her waist pulled her forward.

Tavren began to hum as they waddled across the ice. The tune was soft, lilting, and rhythmic. The song helped the Fey’ri skim the ice as she swayed her gait to the beat. Althea did the same two places back, hands spread wide to keep her balance.

Seth joined in a tenor, counterweaving a harmony with Tavren’s alto. Kaelen hummed in a baritone and Foxran joined with his deep base from the rear. Surrounded by music not her own, she found she was able to cross more quickly. No sound was loud enough to carry or crack the ice, and for a moment, they were all encased in a beauty only creation wrought.

Valka trotted ahead of the horses, paws whisper-light, nose low to the ice as though she smelled something through its impossible thickness. Every few moments, her ears flicked back toward Alenyah, checking, listening. She was restless. Alert. Too alert.

Alenyah wished she could call her closer, tuck her hand into the familiar scruff of Valka’s neck, press their songs together and steady them both, but the spacing mattered. Every foot of distance was safety. Kaelen said as much, and though she bristled at being ordered, she didn’t argue. Not here.

Valka halted to her right, tail raised as a black and white flag. Her fur bristled, and her ears swivelled forward. As she halted, so did Alenyah glancing across the twenty feet between them with concern. A growl crescendoed deep in the Fylgja’s chest, and the horses began shifting and champing, rolling the whites of their eyes.

Kaelen froze. “Hold.” His voice barely breached the silence, but the rope around Alenyah’s waist from behind slackened.

Amber eyes glanced at her over his broad shoulders, piercing and insistent. “What do you sense?”

Acting quickly, she closed her eyes and sang, reaching outwards, upwards, downwards. She soothed the horses and follow the sour note of Valka’s fear deep into-

Green eyes blazed open. Her breath hitched. A chill ran down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

“She smells…movement,” Alenyah whispered. “Something is shifting under us.”

Foxran swore softly. “Great. Lovely. Let’s just run across the haunted frozen lake in the dark. Brilliant plan, Kaelen-”

“Quiet,” Kaelen snapped, but not cruelly. His attention was locked on the black mirror beneath their feet. He adjusted his stance, distributing his weight with practiced ease. “Whatever’s down there, noise will only draw it.”

That wasn’t right. Not “noise”. Not even music. Their SONG. She gasped and pulled the strands to herself. This land NEEDED the silence.

A sound.

Subtle. Almost imagined.

A muted boom far below, like a fist striking an enormous drum.

The ice quivered.

Alenyah’s heart lurched painfully. “We need to move. Now.”

Kaelen nodded sharply. “Fast, but steady. Don’t run. Don’t stop.”

He tugged on the rope, on her, and seemed ready to drag everyone across of his own strength and body. The stars above rippled in watery distortion as faint ripples moved under the ice, pacing them, following as they hustled across the ice. Foxran held the reins of the first horse, the others tied to each saddlehorn in front. He seemed ready to release them and buy seconds if necessary.

Valka paced alongside, weaving closer. She barked once, in warning. The sound cracked across the ice- echoed off the peaks.

​​Kaelen glanced back, voice barely audible. “Stay with her, Alenyah. Whatever happens. Don't let her get too far ahead.”

The words tightened something deep in her chest. A pressure that felt far too much like dread. She did not know, could not know, that this night, this crossing, would carve itself into her bones forever.

Rather than keep the line, she moved to the right, pulling Seth behind Kaelen and herself closer to Valka. The ice was too slick for running. She distantly wondered if she grabbed hold of Valka’s pelt if the hound could speed the crossing. The Fylgja drifted closer, panting, a white lined shadow in the starlight.

Alenyah never forgot the way the light gleamed in her friend’s dark eyes. Then, a boom came from directly beneath. A crack spiderwebbed under her feet, blooming like jagged petals. “MOVE!” Kaelen bellowed.

Valka lunged toward her at the same moment the ice buckled. The lake swelled upward in a grotesque bulge, as though something enormous pressed its back against the frozen lid of the world.

The stars fractured in the surface. The force made Alenyah unsteady, and she slipped on the ice, falling to her knees. Another boom, heartbeat slamming against bone. The horses screamed. Foxran swore and slashed their leads free; they bolted, hooves skittering wildly across the glass. Tavren cried out as the rope between them snapped taut.

Valka was beside her in the next moment, head pushing under Alenyah’s arm to carry her bodily away. Valka snarled, an unearthly ripping sound that vibrated through Alenyah’s bones. The hound braced her paws wide on the trembling mirror, eyes white-rimmed and fixed on the bulging darkness below.

“Go!” Alenyah cried, shoving at Valka’s neck, trying to force her back toward the others. “Valka, go!”

But the hound refused. She shoved Alenyah again, this time harder, driving her several slipping steps backward across the slick surface.

She felt the slick smear of corruption dragging claws through the deeper chords of the world. And in that instant she knew with a sick, sinking horror: She should have been more careful. The darkness had traveled farther than she’d feared. And she had led them straight across its sleeping spine.

The cracked reflections of the Fey’ri and her Fylgja exploded and launched them skyward. Valka went higher as the rope around Alenyah’s waist jerked her downwards with bruising force. She cried out as it snapped her momentum, bruising her ribs and hips, cutting into her flesh as it hauled her back toward the ice.

Valka’s form seemed to hang for a moment above her, silhouetted against the starlit sky, suspended amid glittering shards of ice like a creature carved from the heavens.

She hit the ice, stunned. But Valka, loyal and brave, hit the water.

A wyrm, grey and Songless rippled in the dark as a great serpent, a single yellow eye peering at its prey.

Gasping, Alenyah rolled over, hand outstretched. She could feel the pounding of footsteps as Kaelen sprinted towards her. Valka erupted from the water in a shattering spray. Her paws slammed against the splintering surface, claws screeching for purchase. She fought, Maker, she fought, muscle and spirit straining as though she could defy the dark itself and return to her.

Wiping blood from her mouth, Alenyah dragged herself forward. Valka’s breath puffed against her fingertips. The brown eyes blinked once. In understanding. In farewell.

Stoneborn arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her back from the edge just as the wyrm surged upward. With a hiss like tearing earth, the beast seized Valka and dragged the last Fylgja of the Fey’ri into the lightless deep.